The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component known as depleted
uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers and the growing scandal may be the
reason behind Anthony Principi’s departure as
secretary of the Veterans
Affairs Department.

This view was expressed by Arthur Bernklau, executive
director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, writing in Preventive
Psychiatry E-Newsletter.

“The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was
really never given,” Bernklau said. “However, a
special report published by eminent scientist LeurenMoret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of
‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of
uranium
munitions by the U.S. military.”

The “malady [from DU] that thousands of our military have suffered and died
from has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the
guessing. . . . The terrible truth is now being revealed,” Bernklau
said.

Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are now dead, he said.
By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. More than
a decade later, more than half (56 percent) who served in Gulf War I have
permanent medical problems. The disability rate for veterans of the world wars
of the last century was 5 percent, rising to 10 percent in Vietnam.

“The VA secretary was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” Bernklau said. “He and the Bush administration have been
hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s
report, it is far too big to hide or to cover up.”

Terry Johnson, public affairs specialist at the VA, recently reported that
veterans of both Persian Gulf wars now on disability
total 518,739, Bernklau said.

“The long-term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence,” Bernklau
said. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear chemist, who retired
from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved in the
Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers
[from the second war] as ‘spectacular’—and a matter of concern.’ ”

While this important story appeared in a Washington newspaper and the wire
services, it did not receive national exposure—a compelling sign that the
American public is being kept in the dark about the terrible effects of this
toxic weapon. (Veterans for Constitutional Law can be reached at (516) 474-4261